Papers Wanted on American Identity - 11/01/09 Deadline

This is a call for papers for the fall 2009 Humanities Review, a literary journal for the St. John's University English Department in Queens, NY.

Our current theme focuses on the polyvalent agencies at play within the construction of contemporary American Identity.

We are also strongly requesting cover art submissions that best exemplify the theme. Cover art open to drawing, painting, photography, and digital art. Limited color or mono-chrome are preferred. Please submit .TIFF FILES ONLY @ 800 dpi to the email address below.

Some matters to consider:

How does the American practice of "nation" converse with the destructive colonial impulses of past Empires such as Rome and Great Britain? How can we use literature to see the transference of these ideas?

In what ways can we look to ameliorate the kitschy stigma of "America" in a Post-9/11 landscape? How has the social practice of culture formed / continue to form the ideological condition of "being American?" With that said, what does it mean to be an American in the 21st Century? What are the ontological pieces that plait our parsonage?

How do you see American visual culture as reifying the American historical repository? Particularly with advertising media that in its polysemous state is most imbued with meaning, how does our interaction with such forms help us create our priorities and manufacture our delight?

To what degree is the American Identity defined by a national literature? What complicates this part of the nation's Identity? For example, is time or nationality of author a factor in relevance to the nation as a whole?

The American Identity is a working paradox. How do the ever-increasing minority ethnic groups and overall intermixing cooperate with/negate the stereotypical White Anglo majority?

As America is often characterized as a nation of immigrants and the Identity usually references a past (sometimes distant) foreign ethnic origin, are there any true Americans?

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The deadline for all submissions is NOVEMBER 1ST, 2009.

All essays are to be limited to 15 single-spaced pages with 12 pt. Times New Roman Font. MLA citation style only. Please submit essays via email to sjuhumanities@gmail.com or via snail mail to: